


the leaping delight

by smartlike



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-28 23:35:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/998251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smartlike/pseuds/smartlike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If I were really Katherine Heigel, you'd probably ask me to stay."</p>
            </blockquote>





	the leaping delight

**Author's Note:**

> This was for kyrafic's fic-bridal shower run by annakovsky and originally posted to LJ. Title from "A Dedication to My Wife" because even TS Eliot poems can become cheesy wedding poems.

The something old is the groom, because that counts when it's your second attempt at a wedding, everyone agrees. The something new is the baby cooing in the front row of the small church. The something borrowed is the delicate silver necklace Miss Patty left her. But there isn't a something blue and Lorelai can't handle anything going wrong at this point, so Rory is sent back to the house to find the blue bra that her mother bought for just this occasion.

She leaves Sookie to tend to Lorelai's flowers, dodges Kirk and her grandmother, and pulls her heavy wool coat over her bridesmaid dress and slips out the back door of the church. She's digging in her pocket for the keys and feels the absence of her feet on the ground without ever feeling the slick ice under her feet. And because falling on the wet, cold, Connecticut winter ground in a pale blue silk dress while rushing out of your mother's wedding isn't awkward enough, the entire thing turns into a scene from some horrific rom-com when she looks up to see Jess walking quickly towards her. He is inexplicably taller since she saw him two Christmases ago at Luke's, but his hair is shorter. He looks nicer in a suit than she would imagine, but that's probably because the only Jess she can imagine in a suit is an angry teenager and not the grown-up she always has to remind herself that he is. The yellow rose on his lapel is crooked, though, so that makes her feel slightly better.

But only slightly. "Am I Katherine Heigel here?" Rory sighs and carefully pushes herself up, her hand turning red from the cold ground.

"Are you okay?" Jess puts a hand under her elbow and guides her towards the parking lot. "Where are you going?"

"My mom needs a thing from her house. And yes, I'm okay. I mean, this is clearly awful and I'm being sent away to pick up something ridiculous which will inevitably delay the wedding and lead to a longer delay while someone complains about the entire thing." She checks to be sure the pavement under her feet is dry and reaches for her keys again. "And this dress is silk, so it will stain where I landed on the ground back there and I'll look like a Real Housewife threw her wine on me in all the photos and I think Grandma is upset about the quality of the scotch being served? But, still, I'm--" Rory stops and pulls her hands out of her pockets, reaching inside her coat to pat the nonexistent pockets of the dress.

Jess grins, slow and familiar like the last lines of _Franny and Zooey_ that she still has memorized even though she hasn't read it in years. "And you lost your keys?"

Rory resists the urge to stamp her feet. "Yes. And I lost my keys." She knows they're probably inside with her purse, under the yellow ribbon she used to wrap her mother's bouquet, but getting out without questions from Babbette or complaints from Taylor was a miracle and she doubts it'll happen again. "So there's that."

Jess tips his chin at a grey sedan three cars down. "That's my rental." He waits two beats and then heads to the car without looking back. Rory follows. "The scotch seemed fine to me."

Rory ducks her head as she slips into the car. "And you and Emily have always had the same taste." She grimaces at the wet silk against her lap and notes that Jess doesn't need directions. She stares out the window and watches the snow blowing across the meadow. "I didn't see you get here."

Jess nods, "Yeah." He pauses, takes the left turn carefully and reaches towards Rory to adjust the heat. She shivers slightly. "I read your piece on that treaty."

Rory feels like she's supposed to be surprised, but even if it makes her self-centered, she's always assumed he reads everything she writes. She bought both of his novels. "Thanks."

"You're going to Geneva right after the wedding?" Jess cuts his eyes to watch her answer and the car swerves just a bit.

Rory laughs. "If I were really Katherine Heigel, you'd probably ask me to stay." She pauses, bites her lip, and then laughs. "Yes."

Jess nods, "I would ask you to stay." They pull into the driveway of her house and he stops the car. "I've never seen her movies, but I never learn my lesson."

Rory blinks, then laughs, and Jess's wry smile is tinged with regret and she imagines what their lives would be like if he had grown up faster, earlier.

He actually has learned his lesson though, because, still smiling, "We've got parents or parent-substitutes to marry." And he reaches over and carefully doesn't touch her, just opens the door and gestures to the house. "Go."

And she goes.


End file.
